Monday, November 29, 2010

This was the song that turned me into a YLT fan twenty years ago. It isn't an original, but Fakebook showed their impeccable taste in cover songs along with their ability to make every song sound like one of theirs. There have been at least three covers of "You Tore Me Down" this year (by Wreckless Eric & Amy Rigby, Paul Collins, and Invisible Cities) -- it's nice to see artists venturing into Groovieland beyond "Shake Some Action".

Sunday, November 28, 2010

(* - last track on my 1990 mix, but there are still 2 days in November)

Ironically, this song ("When It Began") was the Replacements final video, and probably the best one they ever made. The last track on All Shook Down was fittingly called "The Last", which I think was written to be the final song on their final album.

ASD is an album that got kind of mixed reviews when it came out, but it keeps getting better as Paul keeps releasing solo albums that don't hold a candle to it. Sometimes I miss the Replacements.

Saturday, November 27, 2010

As "Velouria" was climbing up the UK Top 40, the band was offered a spot on Top Of The Pops. However, a BBC rule stated that only singles with videos could be performed on the show. To counter this, a cheap video was made with the band being filmed running down a quarry.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

At some point, these guys changed their name from "Trash Can Sinatras" to "Trashcan Sinatras", which messes up my iTunes, but last.fm tries to "correct" the name when I try to standardize it, so I have two "Trash Can Sinatras" albums and two "Trashcan Sinatras" albums.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

The first few times I heard this song, I thought it was a new Squeeze song. If you're getting confused with Squeeze, you're doing something right in my book.

These guys later got tagged with the "Friends" theme, which probably made them a bunch of money but ended up killing their career. Why don't the reruns play the entire theme song -- that was the best thing about the show and it's only 30 seconds long!

Friday, November 12, 2010

The J song is by a S.F. Bay Area band called the Movie Stars, which has almost no internet presence, so I'm falling back to another J song by Concrete Blonde.

I've always liked this song, but I only bought Bloodletting as an R.E.M./Dream Syndicate completist because Steve Wynn and Peter Buck were on it, and I've never owned anything else by Concrete Blonde, or had any desire to do so.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

HOL's self-titled "butterfly" album is another lost classic from the early 90s. And their first self-titled album is a lost classic from the late 80s. Their biggest mistake was putting titles on their albums.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

I had trouble compiling a top 20 from 1990 and I'm not sure if I even purchased 20 albums that year, but I'm pretty sure Submarine Bells was my #1 for the year. And it still holds up as one of the best albums of its time.

Monday, November 8, 2010

This was written as a Beatles homage, so the Posies were excited when Ringo covered it a couple of years later. It seems like an anti-wedding song even though I've seen it performed at two different weddings. And its video doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

For 1990, I'm following the "songs in alphabetical order" format. First up is "Baby's Coming Back" by Jellyfish.

When I discovered the internet in the mid 90s, I discovered that there were people who hated Jellyfish and people who loved them. I'm in the like don't love camp, except for this song, which I love and think is absolutely brilliant.